


Exile on B Street

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock in Exile, talking objects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:34:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t just the skull that speaks. It isn’t just the dust. </p>
<p>*Just so I know, do you care (for me) at all? *</p>
<p>It’s been six months.   *You know that I do.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exile on B Street

**Author's Note:**

> Part of something longer ["True Indigo"], but for now, a 221B.
> 
> Will write something happier next!

 

_“You'll be a hard act to follow,  
A bitter pill to swallow...” –The Rolling Stones, “Plundered My Soul”  
  
_

It isn’t just the skull that speaks. It isn’t just the dust. The truth is, all objects, all substances, all compounds, all elements, speak to Sherlock; all natural facts, all phenomena, all ephemera, all evidence. 

A guide to a Central American country speaks of the scent of bitter almonds: a centipede, unfurling its striped exoskeleton, (a carnivorous taxon, apostemic colors, poison related to cyanide; this species will put you in bed for three days with fever), the indigo macaw ( _la lapa_ , in the local dialect) screeching overhead.

Maps, photographs, a bridge on the Rio Tarcoles--look there, is where we are going. (But where have we been?)

A tangle of veins in his arms, blue, deoxygenated.  (The last time he saw Baker Street; John’s mug tipped on the table, grazing a beaker.)

All nouns evolve (are broken) into claims.  Every fact adapts (breaks) into a declaration.

And every single act predicts its consequence.

He doesn’t like to think what John saw, what he made John see, but he tries. (Cyanide and indigo, poisonous and blue.)

****

Sometime after he’s gone, a mirror speaks to him in John’s voice:

_Just so I know, do you care (for me) at all?_

It’s been six months.    _You know that I do._

_Well I loved you, you know._

Cyanide and indigo, poisonous and blue.


End file.
